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1915
Attacks are carried out against Germans, against the backdrop of WWI.
The sinking of the passenger ship Lusitania and the subsequent media reaction, within a climate of rising xenophobia and impending war led to nationwide riots. They begin in Liverpool (where the Lusitania was from) before spreading to Manchester, the Midlands, Derbyshire, London and other cities.
Vast damage is done as German shops and houses come under attack and many German-owned businesses are destroyed. The government is forced to adopt a policy of either internment or forced repatriation, the local German community in the East End is largely forced to leave. The press and even some MPs supported and incited the violence
1919
There are nationwide race riots, this time attacks against the black community.
Nine British cities (all port towns) between January and August were involved in clashes, between huge crowds of white men, sometimes in their thousands, and a few dozen black men. Black sailors had often been used by dockyards and the Merchant Navy to undercut the pay rate of white sailors for many years. This caused a long-term grievance, which had frequently led to clashes between black and white sailors in the first two decades of the twentieth century and beyond. The 1919 disturbances were linked to wider fustrations of post war Britain, which was experiencing shortages and fierce job competition, and a general sense that the sacrifices of the war had been futile was being felt on a national level. Resentment and frustration amongst unemployed workers was looking for a scapegoat and release, which they found in the small, isolated and vulnerable black community. Sporadic outbreaks of unrest were the mark of frustrations and resentments that lay simmering under the surface.
1926
Nine days of general strike, The Lansbury years.
1930's
The outbreak of anti-Jewish disturbances led by Facist, Oswald Mosley and the Blackhirts.
This was met by fierce resistance by many left-wingers. The key areas targeted by Fascist Anti-Semites were three boroughs in the East End: Bethnal Green, Shoreditch and Stepney. The Anti-Jewish disturbances culminated in the Battle of Cable Street when Mosley and his British Union of Fascists were met and stopped from marching by Communist organisations and local Jews.
New legislation in the form of a Public Order & Public Meetings Act was introduced to defuse and contain the situation. The new restrictive legislation was largely successful, but it also served to cover up the issues that had caused the underlying social tensions in the first place. The nasty ethnic abuse and tensions were quietly forgotten until they returned when a new wave of immigrants came to bear the focus of racial hostility after the Second World War.
1936
Public Order Act
1938
Public Meetings Act
1940-41
German bombing raids: vast swathes of the East End are demolished. 24th of August- first bombs are dropped; they fall on Stepney and Bethnal Green. The Blitz of weekly bombing raids lasted until the second weekend of May 1941. It is estimated that over 3.5 million homes were destroyed or damaged and 15,000 men, women and children were killed. South Bank boroughs suffered heavily but no area was attacked as systematically as the East End.
1950
Unemployed Somali seamen demonstrate against unfair treatment, wages and living conditions. Surveys of the time revealed that at the end of the war Somali, Arab, West African and West Indian seamen were unable to find any form of seagoing employment. The problem was compounded by the fact that the majority had settled in areas such as Liverpool, Teeside and Stepney that had already large numbers of white, unskilled unemployed labourers.
The harsh economic conditions and overt discrimination where employers chose whites first, aggravated the situation. In order to resolve this problem, Somali seamen become the major target of a costly and largely ineffective repatriation scheme pioneered by the government.
1965
The London borough of Tower Hamlets is formed to include Bethnal Green, Poplar and Stepney.
1969
The media reports for the first time 'Paki-bashing' for the first time. Most of the victims were Bangladeshis who lived in compact communities in Spitafields and Whitechapel, where a third of a century earlier Blackshirts were attacking the Jewish population. Bangladeshis often lived in poverty, in overcrowded conditions and worked in the same sweatshops as the earlier immigrant generation. They also suffered the familiar prejudice of residents who feared the 'alien' newcomers in their streets.
The Bangladeshis originally arrived in the 1960's as Bengali Pakistan seamen from Chittagong, Chalna and upriver towns. They were to be the last of London's seaborne immigration and settled naturally near their port of arrival as Huguenots, Chinese and Jews had done so before them. Subsequent cheaper air travel meant that later immigrants from the Indian sub-continent and other migrants settled in Southall, near London Heathrow, their airport of arrival.
1969-70
The traditional industries and trades of the East End based in the dockyards are by now almost dead. Dockers and people in dock-related industries were being made redundant by the riverside revolution in their thousands. A part of London that had enjoyed full employment twenty years previously now had 10,000 workers on the dole. At the start of the following decade under Thatcher that number was to increase dramatically.
1970's
The social make-up of St. Katharine's dock is once again rewritten. The area is sold to the Greater London Council, under conservative control, who, in consultation with the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, invite plans and proposals from developers.
Taylor Woodrow are given a 125 year lease to manage the property, and St. Katharine's dock is the first development of its kind to be seen in the East End. A yachting marina is created, a World Trade Centre, the posh Tower Hotel, luxury apartments and chic shops.
The startling changes were viewed with trepidation by those with the foresight to recognise it as a blueprint for things to come. While the Tower Hotel was offering its first tourists a choice from 826 bedrooms, Tower Hamlets Council had a housing list of people awaiting a home 6000 names long.
(John Pudney 'London's Docks'178-81: 1975)
1978
The episodes of violence towards Asians grew with such intensity during the 1970s, that a report was commissioned entitled Blood on the Streets, highlighting the extreme discrimination and persecution faced by East London's Asians.
East London, and the Borough of Tower Hamlest in particular, are widely recognised as one of the largest areas of poverty and economic decline in Britain. Despite massive regeneration in Docklands, deprivation and its associated social problems are still widespread. However, in the 1990s, the Isle of Dogs and the surrounding areas have been designated as economic development zones; cash from businesses and the government is energetically pumped in.
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